Viridian
by MyMagentaPeach
Summary: Blaine gets a call he cannot handle while on his way to the Hummels' for Friday Night Dinner. Burt tries to figure out how he can help. Takes place some time in the months since Christmas, Season 4.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee, and all that.

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**A/N: **The title is ... it felt really, really right. Feel free to read all kinds of meanings into it. I would love to hear your interpretations of how it fits/might fit with the story, I really really, would!

On to the story!

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**Viridian  
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The phone is still in his hand, now hanging limp on his side, resting on the couch he is sitting on, when the numbness in his mind finally begins to dull enough.

It takes one word reaching him for the smile, all fake and more a grimace than anything, to finally, finally fade completely.

"Blaine?"

"He thinks I'm useless," it just spills out.

"Who, Son?"

"He does not say it, never says it like that, but I can hear it, he means it, it's all he ever means me to hear. what else am I suppossed to think?"

Burt is kneeling on the floor in front of Blaine, now cowering up on the couch, phone forgotten, turned off and pushed into a corner. "Who was that on the phone? You finished up a call in our driveway, just before you came in, Blaine?"

Blaine chokes out the words, "The guy my mom married."

"Your dad?"

"Burt," it is a sob, "please don't call him that. He's nothing like ..." Burt thinks Blaine wants to say 'a dad,' but really what Blaine had stopped himself from saying had been, 'He is nothing like ..., like you, Burt.'

"Why not?" Burt asks, openly.

They have never talked about it. Blaine has been spending more and more time here again since he and Kurt started becoming closer again since Christmas, but no one has wanted to risk having Blaine think he is not welcome, so neither Carole nor Burt have asked.

But now, eleven minutes after Blaine has shown up, curls wild and tears streaming down his face, on their doorstep, only Burt at home, Burt does not feel like he has a choice, he has to try and have Blaine open up this time, 'So I can help, Kid. I only wanna help.' It is after all not the first time Carole or him have found Blaine crying some place around the house, mostly curled up on Kurt's old bed, one hand fisted into the bedcovers the other clasped over his mouth to muffle the sounds, eyes squeezed shut tight.

They have always let him be, let him and themselves pretend. 'It's enough now,' Burt is determined. Burt is also ripped out of his thoughts a second later.

"I should go," Blaine suddenly, still out of it, starts getting to his feet, shaking all over.

"Kid, Blaine! No, please stay. Carole will be home soon. I was just about to start dinner. Wanna help?"

"I don't think I can, Burt."

"Sure you can. Come on," Burt says padding Blaine carefully on the back, then guiding him, arm still around the boys shoulder into the kitchen, "Let's chop some carrots."

Blaine works in almost a trance through half a pack of carrots.

It is a trick Burt has learned from seeing Kurt and Blaine together. Whenever Blaine had looked down or really upset Kurt had taken him into the kitchen to do something that needed at least some attention, and would ease Blaine's mind.

When the next carrot Blaine picks up slips out of his hand and lands with an audible thud on the kitchen floor, Blaine jumps like crazy, like he is expecting a hole to open up in the ground and swallow him whole right where the vegetable just landed.

Burt is fast by Blaine's side and takes the peeler he is still holding out of Blaine's right hand.

"… sssorry," Blaine stutters out, after heaving a big scared sigh.

"Son, you need to talk to someone. I get it you don't wanna talk to me, … let me at least call Kurt for you."

"You can't. We're broken up."

"I know, Kid, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care just as much as he used to. I know my son, Blaine. Let me call him, please?"

"No, Burt, no. Can … can we just finish this and then I promise we'll talk?"

"You promise?"

"I do."

"Okay, Kid."

Twenty-nine minutes later the soup is actually boiling on the stove as Burt and Blaine, each a glass of ice tea in hand, make their way into the garden.

They sit down on a bench in the fresh evening air, of one of the warmer days of the year so far, spring tangibly around the corner now - Burt had suggested it might help, fresh air.

"What happened earlier?"

"He called me, it was my birthday two weeks ago," Burt nods, yes, he knows that, they celebrated after all, took Blaine out to one of his favorite restaurants that Friday Night, "and …, and today he remembered for some reason or another. Probably paperwork."

"Your dad forgot your birthday."

"It doesn't even matter."

"Blaine, Kid, of course it does."

"No, Burt, no it doesn't anymore. I've hardly talked to him as it is the last years, less since I met Kurt, and Carole, … and you."

"What did he say to you?"

"I asked him for something, actually, I thought while I had him on the phone for once, …. I needed some money to finish up a school project, get some extra books, and he … he just …."

"He doesn't want to help you out?"

"No, no, Burt, that's not it. Money is never it. He doesn't even care about that. I wish I didn't need his money, than I would never have to have these talks again, ever."

Burt reaches out a hand and places it on Blaine's left, resting on his knee, shaking with nerves.

"What did he say, Blaine?"

"He told me I wasn't going to finish the project anyway."

"He what?" Burt asks incredulous.

"I … I …, he says, sure he'll give me the money, and I can go party then with it, because I sure as fuck won't be finishing the paper anyway, like I never do, he says."

"Has he not seen the brilliant biology project you did with Kurt last year? And your maths presentation last month for extra credit?"

"He has not cared in years, so I have stopped telling him. But sometimes I need something I cannot pay for with what I make in holidays with my singing and piano lessons, so I can't get around it, and … and," Blaine is starting to hiccup now and tears are beginning to spill over, "he never says it, but he let's me feel it all, he makes sure I know how useless he thinks I am. What a brat, how pedantically useless I am to him."

Blaine only registers the glass slipping from his fingers and shattering on the cold ground made of stone when the sound reaches his ears and he jumps with the sharp sound right out of his seat. "Burt, I'm so sorry, I'll go get something to clea…."

But Burt, having put his own drink aside a moment ago, is already right there, pulling Blaine to his chest. He waits a couple of minutes, until he can feel Blaine has really calmed down, before he hums "Next time you need something, anything, you come to me and Carole."

Blaine is still hiccupping, "I can't do that, Burt. I'm not your responsibility. Now less than ever."

"I don't care whose responsibility anyone says you are. We care about you, Blaine, and you don't deserve to have to put up with shit like that."

"He won't stop, he just never stops. He always lets me know he thinks I am being an idiot, either lazy, or overworking stuff, but either way, unproductive, … useless."

Burt holds Blaine tighter as he walks him back into the house over to Kurt's mom's piano.

One day Kurt wants to take it with him to New York, but not until he has his own place, a damage free zone, free of that weird naked boyfriend Blaine knows Rachel has now. Kurt has told him, _"I won't give that creep the opportunity to defile the piano bench my mom and I used to sit on, the piano she taught me to play at."_

It is the very bench Burt is sitting with Blaine on right now, asking gently, "Can you play me something?"

Blaine mumbles confused, "What do you want to hear?"

"Anything that comes to mind is fine," Burt gives him a nudge to the shoulder and an encouraging smile as Blaine positions his hands over the keys, scooting to the edge of the seat, and looks over to Burt one last time before his fingers begin to move, his eyes first following the movemnt, soon closing.

Blaine starts out slow, nervous, almost uncoordinated, but after the first two and a half minutes have passed he begins to truly relax into it, like it had been so easy to do with Kurt by his side from the get go.

He does not notice Carole joining them by the piano, or Burt giving an encouraging squeeze to his shoulder.

Blaine's heart starts to hammer wildly in his chest when he realizes he is playing his part of the instrumental version of _Perfect_ he and Kurt had made up one day together for four hands.

When Blaine scoots back a little again from the instrument after the last chord is played, a moment of quiet is followed by Carole's voice, "That was beautiful, Blaine. I wish Kurt was here so you could've played it together."

Blaine closes his eyes, and some tears escape.

"Did I say something wrong, Sweety?"

Burt reaches to squeeze her right hand with his left and mouths, _"I'll explain later."_ Carole is furious once he does so that night in bed.

"Blaine?"

"Yeah, Burt," Blaine croaks out.

"That was amazing. You are very talented."

There is not one word from Burt about Blaine's dad, not one word even referring back to any of that, and Blaine knows what Burt is doing.

Blaine feels not quite alright yet, but eternally grateful already, like he has found himself so often ever since he first had met the Hummels. Ever since the first time he had met a family he wanted to belong with. He knows what Burt is trying to tell him, trying to allow Blaine to feel, free of doubt, 'You matter. You are worth so much, Kiddo.'

And then Blaine is clinging on to Burt with all he has, both still sitting on the piano bench. Letting out all tears he needs to cry, letting go of that feeling driven so deep into him over years of parental abuse. And Burt's words keep washing over him, encase him, sink into his core, deep, allow him to feel free, for the first time in so long, allow him to be more than a protective shell. To be him, just him, and feel alright about it.

"You are wonderful, Blaine. You are a wonderful kid."

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A/N: So this came about after my dad's birthday call with me today. I freak out, and feel done for and get down on myself, and it plain hurts, because after all this time, I am still tempted, like Blaine in this story, to try and push it all away instead of dealing, even though I know it will make me do stupid things,real stupid things. Yeah, the guy knows how to motivate my inner demons to start rearing their heads again.I still don't know if he knows he has been doing this to me for forever. I just don't know.

This is me not pushing it away, this is me dealing as best I can right now: I came to you guys and wrote instead of ...

I needed to tell someone in story form, so thank you for listening to me. It's so much better than getting lost in myslef ...over and over and over.

On the plus side it got you guys a new, utterly unexpected, I guess, story.

Thank you for reading. Thoughts are always welcome.


End file.
